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NEWS
CUBA - 31 October 2003
Independent journalist arrested in the centre of the country
Reporters Without Borders today
condemned the arrest of independent journalist Abel Escobar Ramírez on
29 October near Morón (350 km east of Havana) and called for his
immediate release. The organisation also called for the return of
documents confiscated from the home of another journalist in the same
region during a search carried out the same day.
A correspondent for the independent news agency Cuba Press in the centre
of Cuba, Escobar Ramírez was detained by members of the National
Revolutionary Police (PNR) on the road between his village, Patria, and
the town of Morón. He had been heading towards the home of Jesús Alvarez
Castillo, another independent journalist working for Cuba Press.
He was taken to the regional headquarters of the Department of State
Security (DSE), the political police, in the town of Ciego de Avila
(south of Morón). The authorities asked his wife, Alina Torres Martinez,
to bring some of his personal effects to him there. Alvarez Castillo
said this request has made the family fear that he could be held for a
long time. His family and friends have had no word of him since his
arrest.
Three hours after the detention of Escobar Ramírez, DSE agents searched
Alvarez Castillo's home in Morón. More than 300 of his books and
magazines were seized. He said the search was linked to his work as a
journalist. He was detained by the DSE for two hours on 19 September
while in Las Tunas province. Alvarez Castillo is also the Ciego de Ávila
representative of the Manuel Márquez Sterling Association of independent
journalists, which publishes the banned magazine De Cuba.
Cuba is now the world's biggest prison for journalists, with a total of
30 detained. Twenty-six of them were arrested along with some 50 other
dissidents during an unprecedented crackdown in March. They were given
prison sentences ranging from 14 to 27 years, in most cases for "threat
to the state's unity and independence." Three of them, held in the
eastern province of Holguín, are currently staging a hunger strike in
protest against prison conditions. They are Iván Hernández Carrillo,
Adolfo Fernández Sainz and Mario Enrique Mayo Hernández.
Cuba was second from last, ahead only of North Korea, in a ranking of
166 countries according to press freedom, which Reporters Without
Borders published on 20 October.
Régis Bourgeat
Despacho Américas / Americas desk
Reporters sans frontičres
5, rue Geoffroy-Marie
75009 Paris - France
tél. : +33 (0) 1 44 83 84 68
fax : +33 (0) 1 45 23 11 51
e-mail : ameriques@rsf.org
/ americas@rsf.org
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